


But still, I don't mind waiting, I'll not make a fuss

by TFALokiwriter



Category: Lost in Space (TV 1965)
Genre: Alpha Centauri - Freeform, Bittersweet, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Movie: Lost in Space Forever (1998), Post-Special: Bill and Max: Lost and Found in Space (2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29002461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TFALokiwriter/pseuds/TFALokiwriter
Summary: Thirty years after the maiden flight for Alpha Centauri, John has a interview celebrating getting to Alpha Centauri.





	But still, I don't mind waiting, I'll not make a fuss

**Author's Note:**

> The junk planet happened before the Time Merchant in this story.
> 
> Side note: I was making a Lost in Space 1965 gif set to the lyrics of Landslide (I love this song so much, it's ridiculous how much I do) and then I realized, while making this gif, that gif had a story going on there. You'll know which gif soon as I am done making it.
> 
> Here's the gifset:  
> https://speedygal.tumblr.com/post/641874133378088960/landslide-fleetwood-mac

Clora's talk show was big and booming when it came to space colonists, it came on straight in the morning after the morning news such as GMAC Alpha Centauri, Today Alpha Centauri, CBS Alpha Centauri Morning News; her show came on after Good Morning Alpha Centauri's second hour just prior to the third hour that would air merely a few hours after in the afternoon. Her show was powerful and strong just as she was and informative delivering interviews for the colonists of progress. She had reported on the events surrounding the first and initial individual forbidden to be spoken about on Alpha Centauri who incited a insurrection against the US capitol at a Save America rally with a emergency show that followed the leads of the other talk shows to air something funny, something hopeful, something good in the mist of terror and uncertainty.

It was a emergency period piece that was made up in short order with Judy Robinson's help, quick scripts, hours that gripped television as what happened on Earth didn't impact them. They had their own government, their own constitution, their own armed forces, their own united states space corps defense. She couldn't forget being brought into a emergency meeting with the Judy Robinson and General West along with other television executives, it had made her heart race and terrified her but one that tested her and everyone else of what to do when the entire planet needed their attention to be swept off horror on another world that was so dearly part of getting them all to the Alpha Centauri System.

This interview was even bigger than that moment; The President of New New York, Alpha Centauri, was coming on for a anniversary interview to commemorate the accomplishment reaching Alpha Centauri.

* * *

"Clora, don't try to derail the conversation."

Her manager was leaning against the doorway of her room.

"I have questions, Charles." Clora turned toward the older man.

"Just be your usual self and don't ask questions about chaos." Charles shook his finger. "The colonists don't want to hear about that."

"They could just read First Lady Doctor Maureen Robinson's book 'Lost in Space' if they wanted to be given a wrapped in sugar interview." Clora replied. 

Charles glared back at her, fiercely.

"Don't ask about chaos."

Clora sighed, her shoulders slumping.

"Fine."

Charles smiled then walked away as her make up team came into the room.

* * *

It was twenty-five minutes later and she was on set on a patio out looking the city. The colorful studio beaming with orange and white and a view of the city of New New York stood out against the set. John appeared rounding about the set, his features aged, just as aged as the tale of the Jupiter 2, with a bushy mustache to prove that he was very retired and content with the grayed hair to say it all.

"Thank you for coming, President Robinson."

"You're welcome."

They shook hands then John sat down into the chair.

"Now, former President, how does it feel that it's been twenty-seven years since reaching Alpha Centauri?"

"It doesn't feel like it were real." John admitted then frowned before adding. "And it's been _thirty years_. Not twenty-seven." It was a curve ball with what she knew. "Thirty years since the first flight. Not the second flight."

"Oh, sorry, we were counting the second as it were the successful flight." Clora replied. "It doesn't feel real?"

John nodded, slowly, but quite brightly with a grin leaning back into the chair.

"Three years in space away from civilization, encountering strange life forms and strange people; it is easy to become a normal that is expected and remembered for the rest of your life."

"So, it's like you're experiencing reruns when you dream? Or, are you really suggesting that this feels like a dream?"

"In not short of words; yes, to both."

"You are suggesting there is some trauma."

"If you like to call it that. . . yes, we still have some trauma from those three years."

"Yet, you have pulled through and managed to make a new life that covers the trauma up. That must have been hard."

"It was."

"And acting as a leader, negotiation, with the squids."

"The Aeolians were unexpected addition to our mission but everything was sorted out and they were reunited with their loved one."

"What loved one?"

"It's all been amazing." John ignored the last part as the Clora looked at him, bewildered. "Something I used to think wasn't going to happen because of everything against us in the beginning with Doctor Smith, Will, Robot, and Penny finding trouble and stirring it up --" The former president smiled, fondly, nostalgically. "---with the good doctor's help."

Clora's attention went off from the subject that was dropped and ignored.

"Whatever happened to your son?"

John didn't have a reply.

"And Doctor Smith and Robot?"

John grew a long and distant stare looking back. Pieces of what Clora had heard came to life, facts that she had disregarded as fake, as disinformation (even when the information came from reliable sources; they needed the extra scrutiny for that) , slowly but surely came to being were true. It was almost silent apart from the sounds of birds flying above the set as the audience from across them was awaiting his next words. Maureen was watching the interview unfold from the television set (with the family album laid open in her lap) back at the Jupiter 2 watching her husband be so taken by a train of thought that had consumed him whenever he thought about it for the last twenty-seven years.

"We have sources from Alpha Control who say they were lost with the Jupiter 2 but no one really knows, information and paperwork has been scarce about it."Clora admitted with much reluctance. "Only thing that is known is just that Alpha Control sent you and your family on a second mission to Alpha Centauri after your family's unexpected return."

John was pained by the reminder, visibly.

"Is your son dead along with Doctor Smith and Robot?" Maureen looked down toward the family album, made of hand drawn pictures by Penny in great detail, of family moments that happened on the Jupiter 2 and on alien planets. She looked down with a smile at them, remembering the good out of the bad, but heartbroken. "And the Jupiter 2 is truly lost as they are."

John was quiet for a long moment as he tapped on the arm rest of the chair as the Clora waited for a reply.

"What happened, we don't know." John broke. "Where did they go---there is no evidence to tell us where."

"How--How is that possible?" Clora asked, curious. "How can you lose your son, your environmental robot, your ship, _and_ your non-designated doctor?"

"One moment you have something and the next you don't." Was what John replied with at first. "That's just the rule of being lost in space. Life is strange out there and answers are hardly in abundance when something cosmic happens like Penny's friend, Mr Nobody, a highly evolved lifeform that we haven't seen in twenty-nine years."

He paused, if only briefly, with a sigh.

"One moment, we were heading back to the Jupiter 2 after a recent adventure with Time and the next---" he shrugged. "We were back on Earth standing in the cold -- our girls in their pajamas -- huddled together at the launch pad outside of Alpha Control without the Jupiter 2, without Will, without Doctor Smith, without Robot."

The words came out quickly with some pain hanging in them with the heart break dripping in the event that brought sorrow upon the set.

"We were surrounded by military police, taken into separate rooms, interrogated, tested before we were put into a military housing complex after our identities were confirmed." 

John cleared his throat.

"Then we tried again, for them, to get here. To finish what we had started three years prior; it is what Will would have wanted. We went to Alpha Centauri because I know, we know, Maureen knows that is the second place Will goes to --- after dropping Doctor Smith on Earth -- after reaching our solar system. We're waiting for them, we have Will's room, a additional charging station ready for Robot, and the Jupiter 2 is planned to be a historical piece after she gets here."

"President Robinson, you mean to say they had a Jupiter ready to go when you returned?"

"They did. They were going to go out and search for us but we ended up coming home, anyway."

"How does it feel to wait for your son?"

"Exciting."

"Exciting?"

"I figure that Will must be forty-three by now and a lot of stories to tell us about how he got here."

"You expect him to be the only one to get here without Robot and Doctor Smith?"

"Hahaa no." John grinned then shook his head. "Doctor Smith and Robot are a package that come together. Can't have one without the other."

Clora and the former president laughed together.

"Maybe he might have a girlfriend, a boyfriend, children, pets; all of which adds to our growing family." John let out some laughter as he reflected on his son's possible growth then he slowly began to grow unhappy as a key reminder hit him in the face. "Three grandchildren. . ."

John sighed _, it was a curse_. A curse that set in when they launched. The curse of the Jupiter 2. Robinsons get lost aboard anything named Jupiter 2 and Don was angry at himself for allowing the shuttle to be named Jupiter 2. Still was angry at himself for that matter. General West was furious at himself the day after it was announced the shuttle was deemed missing. He had approved of it, lobbied for it, just for Earth to have something that had a connection after the unfortunate scrap of relations when the president was diminishing it's reputation among the stars. 

"Two of whom are missing in action after a flight from Earth to Saturn." John finished his thought. 

Clora was curious.

"Have you heard any word about that since then?"

John looked toward her then shook his head as Maureen cried.

"Don is holding out hope that they would hear from Craig and Robon sometime. . . Penny isn't coming to Alpha Centauri until her children are back."

"Do you have some hope for them?"

"Yes." Then John smiled with a nod. "We got home, but we had to lose something just to get here. I am certain they will, too. Perhaps not the passengers but the ship itself."

"Does it make you regret coming here without them?" Clora asked. "We're running out of time, President Robinson."

"Will must be happy to be having adventures every day, meeting new lifeforms, new people, and shooting monsters that pose significant harm to what little family that he has." John changed the subject, quite painfully, with little signs that he was bothered by the thought. "He must be optimistic, maybe a little cynical toward Doctor Smith, but hopeful, faithful, that he will get back with us." 

John's grin grew board.

"I don't care if Will is my age when he comes back, just that he gets here." John then added. "We're still waiting for them. "

"And that's a wrap, thank you for the interview."

"No, thank you for letting me talk about this. It's been immensely helpful."

John shook her hand and smiled as Clora made breaking news.

* * *

Somewhere, far away from Earth, millions of light years away, inside the Jupiter 2, with Doctor Smith somewhere aboard; Robot was with a young boy called Will Robinson and he _wasn't_ his Will. 

Will was horribly lost in another universe away from every face that he knew and sixty-three.


End file.
